Is Spain's high unemployment rate "partly because of spending" to promote green jobs
SUMMARY: Despite George Will's history of misinformation on global warming, The Washington Post published a column by Will citing a widely disputed study that was "supported" by an oil-industry-funded think tank and rejected by the Spanish government to suggest that Spain's high unemployment rate is "partly because of spending" to promote green jobs.
Despite George Will's history of misinformation on global warming, The Washington Post published a column by Will on June 25 that cited a widely disputed study "supported" by an oil-industry-funded think tank and rejected by the Spanish government to suggest that Spain's high unemployment rate is "partly because of spending" to promote green jobs, and thus suggest the Obama administration should not pursue similar policies. This follows a pattern in which The Washington Post has allowed Will to repeatedly distort data in order to call into question the overwhelming evidence that humans are causing global warming -- distortions that have elicited widespread criticism, including from Post colleague Gene Robinson, Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander, and World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
In his column, Will wrote that Gabriel Calzada, "an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report that, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda." Will went on to describe Calzada's conclusions:
Calzada says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies -- wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries.
However, Calzada's study has been widely disputed:
* In a May 20 letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman, Teresa Ribera RodrÃguez, Spain's secretary of state for climate change, stated that "the Spanish Government would like to express its views." She wrote that Calzada's analysis used a "low reliable and non rigorous methodology" and that the data he used are "totally out of keeping with the current reality of the sector." She also wrote:
In Spain, according to the last data of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade the [renewable energy] sector employs 73.900 direct workers, while other report by ISTAS-CCOO (labour union institute of work, environment and health) estimates 89000 direct jobs plus 99681 indirect jobs, against de 52200 direct and indirect jobs to the Calzada's figures (unknown source). According to data of the Ministry of Industy, Tourism and Trade and of the wind power business association, the wind power employed 37730 people instead of the 15000 jobs considered in the Calzada's paper.
